RIGHT ON TARGET!: TAKING DOG TRAINING TO A NEW LEVEL

Right On Target!

Taking Dog Training to a New Level

Mandy Book and Cheryl S. Smith

Right on Target. Taking Dog Training to a New Level

Mandy A. Book and Cheryl S. Smith

Dogwise Publishing

A Division of Direct Book Service, Inc.

PO Box 2778

701B Poplar

Wenatchee, Washington 98807

1-509-663-9115, 1-800-776-2665

website: www.dogwisepublishing.com

email: info@dogwisepublshing.com

@ 2006 Mandy Book and Cheryl S. Smith

Graphic Design: Shane Beers — Chicago, IL

Photographs by Donn M. Dobkin, Just A Moment Photography, www.justamomentphoto.com

Illustrations by Judith Winthrop

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, digital or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage or retrieval system without permission in writing from the publisher.

Limits of Liability and Disclaimer of Warranty:

The author and publisher shall not be liable in the event of incidental or consequential damages in connection with, or arising out of, the furnishing, performance, or use of the instructions and suggestions contained in this book.

Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available upon request from the Library of Congress

ISBN: 1-929242-32-8

Printed in the U.S.A.

DEDICATION

This book is dedicated to the girls, who are both my pupils and my teachers, and to Tonka, where it all started.

Mandy Book

To all my dogs, who targeted on their own many, many times before their dense human figured out what was going on, and to all the dog training pioneers who popularized and refined clicker training and targeting. You know who you are.

Cheryl S. Smith

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Dedication

Chapter 1 Targeting Basics

Chapter 2 Nose Touches

Touch Nose to Hand

Contact Disk

Target Stick

Chapter 3 Foot Touches

Touch Front Foot to Target

Front Foot Swipe

Chapter 4 Body Touches

On Your Mat

Hip Touch

Chapter 5 Good Behavior Touches

Get Dressed

Recall

Heel Off Leash

Heel On Leash

Chapter 6 Targets for Agility

Front and Rear Crosses

Go On

Go to a Table

Down Contacts

Chapter 7 Social Targets

Kiss

Visit/Go Say Hi

High Five

Tug/Retrieve

Chapter 8 Targets for Freestyle

Spin

Weave Through Legs

Side-Step

Chapter 9 Targeting for Show Business

Hug

Sit Up

Crawl

Bow

Limp

Resources

Record Sheets

Author Biographies

1

TARGETING BASICS

If you usually keep dog cookies in your pocket, chances are good that your dog likes to get his nose in, on, or as close to that pocket as he can. That pocket is serving as a target. You’ve already trained your dog to target on a specific location without even knowing you were doing it! If you’ve taught your dog to go to his bed or crate when you point to it or tell him to go, that’s a target that you trained intentionally. If you crouch down and open your arms wide when you call your puppy, you’re using your whole welcoming body as a target. Yet most dog owners don’t realize they are using targets in their training.

Think about it. Getting your dog to come to you or go to a specific location on your cue is extremely useful—just imagine all the possibilities! Competitive dog sports usually have a targeting component—over hurdles, through tunnels, in and out of weave poles. Targeting is also useful in day to day situations: Need to get your dog out of the way of approaching toddlers with ice cream cones on a walk? Use your hand as a target to bring the dog to your side, and walk on by.

Large animal trainers must use targeting because you can’t just put a leash on a wild animal to get him to move where you want him. Dolphin trainers use targets all the time. Watch a seaquarium show and notice the discs on the ends of poles they put into or hold above the water from time to time. These serve as a target that the animal can go to in order to get a reward. Zookeepers also use targets. They teach elephants to put their foreheads on a target and stay there so it’s safer for the keepers to work around them. Chimpanzees are taught to extend an arm to a target so that blood can be drawn or other veterinary procedures can be performed.

Dog owners and trainers can make much more and better use of targets, and we’ve written this book to do just that. Have you ever wanted to teach your dog to ring a bell when he wants to go outside? Teaching him this skill is teaching your dog to target. Just want to have a dog who behaves well in your home? Use a target to teach him to happily put on a collar, to come when called, to walk without pulling, or to go and lie down. Want to compete in agility? You can use targets to teach the necessary contact zones, the pause table, to get speed over straight lines of obstacles. Rather dance with your dog in canine freestyle? Targets are great for heeling, weaving through your legs, spinning, circling—almost any trick you’d like to have in your routine. Do you think your dog has Star Power? Animals working in commercials or movies use targets all the time—they have to hit a mark, after all. Plus many of the acting behaviors you see on screen can be taught with targets. Targets have nearly unlimited uses!

This Miniature Poodle has been taught to push a toy wheelchair using targets.

BASIC CONCEPTS

Both of us (your authors) train using a clicker because we have found it to be an extremely effective tool when working with dogs. But some people find it awkward to hold the clicker, present a target, and deliver treats. You can use a whistle, a spoken word (such as YES!), or your choice of sound (or, for deaf dogs, a visual such as a pen light). Any of these is a bridge or a marker, which is followed up with a treat to reinforce a behavior you want the dog to perform.

Different choices have different advantages and disadvantages. The clicker is more precise, and not a sound that the dog hears all day, every day. You may feel clumsy with it at first, but it will become more natural with practice, so give it some time. A bridge word is always available to you, and you don’t have to hold any extra equipment in your hand, but your dog hears you talking all the time. It’s your choice—throughout this book, we will use the generic term marker to refer to any sound used to tell the dog that’s it, that’s what I want and you’ll either click or say yes or some other word you choose.

The marker allows you to break a behavior down into small steps working toward the complete picture—this is referred to as shaping.

When you start reading the instructions for training a behavior, it may look a bit daunting. All those steps! Keep in mind that training sessions should be very short—certainly no longer than 5 minutes—and you may go through several steps in one session. So two or three sessions a day will allow you to train the easiest behaviors in a day or two. The more difficult behaviors may require you to stay at the same step for several sessions and will obviously take a little longer, but because training sessions will be short, sweet and snappy, both you and your dog should have fun.

We’ve written the book with two approaches to learning a skill. For our readers who are experienced dog trainers, we give a first set of instructions in outline, or streamlined, form we call Go. If you’re already familiar with clicker training, that may be all you need to get going and train the skill. The second set of instructions, called Go-The Details, uses the same steps but with deeper explanation to help you overcome any difficulties you may encounter. The Troubleshooting section talks about some common and not so common stumbling blocks and how to work through them. The Keep in Mind section alerts you to details you will need to pay attention to as you train.

TIMING

Getting the timing of your marker right is very important—or you risk training the wrong thing! In order to mark the behavior you want, you must be able to time your marker so that it occurs while the behavior you want the dog to perform is happening. Many beginners are consistently late in their initial efforts to mark behavior. You can overcome this by doing exercises to improve your timing, without involving your dog. Here are a few:

• While you watch television, choose some common word and click (or say your bridge word) every time a performer says it. Even better, tape shows and try to pause the tape while the performer is saying the word. You know you’ve got the timing right if you can react quickly enough to stop the tape on that word and not four words later.

• Toss a tennis ball (or have someone else do the tossing) against a sloping surface such as a low roof. Click when the ball hits the roof.

• Toss the ball straight up into the air and click at the highest point of the toss.

• Watch friends play tennis and click each time the racquet hits the ball (the click and thunk of the racquet should occur simultaneously).

Now you’re getting it!

BREAKING DOWN BEHAVIORS—YOUR KEY TO SUCCESS

To use a marker to its full potential and develop complex behaviors, you must be able to break the behavior down into small, trainable steps. We have written out the steps for each of the basic types of touches (nose, foot, and body) in the next three chapters. Read over these steps to get an idea of how to break down a behavior. As you follow the steps and gain some experience, you will learn the process of breaking down behaviors so that you can customize this approach to your needs. To help you along, we’ve broken the early steps down more finely than later steps, and made the instructions for behaviors early in the book more detailed than those coming later.

CRITERIA

With this kind of training, you need to know when to ask for a little more from your dog. As trainers say, you need to raise your criteria. Criteria just means the level of behavior you are going to reward. So if you are teaching a nose touch, you might start with the criteria of dog looks at the target. After your dog does that a few times, you might raise your criteria to dog moves head toward target, then advance to dog touches nose to target.

An easy method to use for deciding when to raise criteria is 7 or 8 out of 10 correct. What this means is that in one short training session, you give the dog the chance to do the behavior 10 times. When he gets it right 8 (7 if the behavior is easy) out of 10 times for 2 sessions in a row (just in case it was a fluke the first time), you can then move up to the next step in your training sequence. In the instructions, you’ll see the notation 8 correct? Move up a step. We recommend this method as the easiest for those just becoming familiar with mark and treat training.

REWARDS

Rewards are a kind of paycheck for your dog’s good work. He will be investing considerable effort into figuring out what you want him to do, so don’t be stingy with your rewards. To avoid loading the dog up on a lot of fast food treats, make a click mix by combining a couple of scoops of the dog’s dry food with a couple of cups of bite-size treats of cheese or meat (the smellier the better). The treats give a little extra appeal to the dog food by rubbing their favor onto the kibble, plus the dog never knows what will come out of the treat bag. Store any leftovers in the fridge.

You want me to do what with this thing? Don’t be stingy with rewards—the dog is working hard to figure out the behavior.

Where and when you give treats can also impact your training. You want to use the delivery of the treat to assist your training, not hinder it. So if you are working on a stationary behavior such as a stay on a mat, give the treat to the dog while he’s in the desired position. If you are working on movement, such as a turn to the left, deliver the treat ahead of the dog to encourage movement.

THE POWER OF OBSERVATION

Even with reasonably good timing, you need to assess your dog’s responses on a continuing basis to ensure that the dog is learning what you think you are teaching. You also need to be aware of signs of stress or fatigue—training with a marker encourages the dog to participate fully in the training process, and is mentally tiring. So be a careful observer of your dog’s progress. Don’t be afraid to take a break.

RECORD KEEPING AND REVIEWING PROGRESS

Keeping records of your progress will come in handy. We’ve included a sample record-keeping system in the Resources section of the book. It allows you to track your progress by making just a few marks on a piece of paper. Throughout the book you’ll see the notation "Take a Break, Review Your Progress, Then Resume." It’s our way of reminding you to give yourself and your dog a breather and see that your training is on track. Your break only has to be long enough for you to think back over the session, or check your notes, while your dog relaxes. If your dog seems to be tiring or becoming inattentive, take a longer break. Don’t forget to pick up any targets you were working with, so the dog isn’t practicing while you take notes!

IT’S NOT MAGIC! MECHANICAL SKILLS CAN BE LEARNED

As long-time animal trainer Bob Bailey has been heard to say, training is a mechanical skill. If you’re new to this